Here Be Dragons
by rgm0005
Summary: There was fire in my blood. Scales beneath my skin. I could feel them both, trying to burst free-but I had to hold on. I tried not to give in, no matter how badly I wanted to hurt them. But everything has it's limits and this was the end of mine. What if Taylor had gotten Lung's powers instead of the Administrator Shard?
1. Spark 1-1

**Here Be Dragons**

**Spark 1.1**

My bones were hot. It wasn't something that I could explain in any other way—not that I intended to _tell_ anyone about it. The air felt cool on my skin and even the flesh beneath felt cold against the heat that was radiating from the core of my body. If I let it go, as I had before, it would expand, spreading warmth—_heat_—through my muscles and out to my skin.

It was tempting to let it—very, very tempting. It was hard to restrain myself day after day and the pressure was mounting, building until I felt like I'd pop. And part of me wanted to—knew what it'd mean and _desired_ it.

But I couldn't, I had to hold on. I could control this, I knew that. I'd managed to keep it in check for nearly half a year now.

But _damn it_ if they weren't making it hard. It would have been easier if I was away from people—alone in my room. I'd have brought flames to my hands and it would have…not made it easier, not really. In fact, it would have come back worse. But for a while it'd have been soothing, simply knowing that I had the power at my fingertips and could bring it out.

But here in school? Here, so close to the source of it all?

I could feel my scales moving beneath my skin. Even more than usual, after so recently having been humiliated and having had my hard work taken from me. Even just when I exhaled, my breath felt warmer than it should have been. I inhaled deeply and held my breath, trying to force it and myself to cool down.

"I asked you after the glue incident. I'm asking you again. Would you be willing to go to the office with me, to talk with the principal and vice principal?" Mr. Gladly asked.

I was silent for a few moments, considering it—and preparing myself to speak. My powers had made me stronger, tougher, let me heal faster, and control flames somewhat even when I was normal—but they'd changed my voice as well. When I talked, I had to be careful to sound like my old self, rather than speaking in a rumbling growl. I usually dealt with this by not talking much at school, but when I had to I always needed a moment to make sure. It was one of the many troublesome things I just had to put up with and be careful about here at school.

"What would happen?" I asked, sounding almost right.

"We'd have a discussion about what's been going on. You would name the person or people you believe responsible, and each of them would be called in to talk to the principal, in turn."

"And they'd get expelled?" I asked, though I already knew the answer and the thought just made my scales brush harder against the underside of my skin.

He shook his head and the confirmation did nothing but make it harder.

"If there was enough proof, they would be suspended for several days, unless they've done something very serious. Further offenses could lead to longer suspensions or expulsion."

"Great. So at best, they'd miss a few days of school, and only if I can prove they were behind it all…and whether they get suspended or not, they come back feeling a hundred percent justified in whatever else they do to me in revenge." I chuckled bitterly, the back of my eyes starting to burn. It would have been bad enough if it was just tears, but I wasn't that lucky. The last thing I needed was for the bullying to get worse right now.

I was barely holding back as it was.

"If you want things to get better, Taylor, you have to start somewhere." Mr. Gladly said, his tone reasonable.

"This isn't a starting point. This is shooting myself in the foot," I said as I pulled on my book bag. When I saw that he didn't have a reply, I left the classroom.

Emma, Madison, Sophia and a half dozen other girls were waiting for me in the hall.

My shoulders fell before the insults even started, feeling like a weight was settling upon them. They were already talking—to each other, ostensibly. I tried to brush by them but they quietly shifted to block my path, not looking at me or stopping their conversation.

"I mean, nobody likes her. Nobody even wants her here," Julia said.

_I know._

"I _know_. She's such a loser. Did you know she didn't even turn in the project for art, last Friday," Sophia responded.

_Because you broke it._

"If she's not going to try, then why is she even coming to school?"

My hands clinched into fists as they voiced the question I'd asked myself. Why was I here? Why did I come? Because I _had_ to?

I didn't **have** to do anything anymore.

The heat behind my eyes increased—as in, it literally got hotter. This was how it always went. For all that they seemed to be talking to each other, this was all about insulting me and I knew it. Careful to retain deniability by not talking _to_ me, not even really facing me, and yet hurting me as much as they could. They'd literally cornered me, slowly, pushing me against the window and crowding around me such that I couldn't get past them without pushing them out of the way. And then they just rained down the insults, the next starting the moment one finished. It wasn't a matter of being accurate, creative, or even about meaning what they said; in fact, many of the insults were contradictory. It was a matter of intent and hammering it in again and again—that they hated me, that they enjoyed seeing me in pain, that they reveled in my suffering, that I was disgusting, tiny, weak, stupid, and generally unpleasant. It was about bringing up past humiliations and mocking me with them without directly admitting to any of it—in jokes, at my expense.

They talked about how they ruined my homework by calling me stupid for how it had affected my grades. They called me ugly, referencing the times they'd ruined my clothes and made me look horrible. Discussed how no one liked me without bringing up the fact that it was because they had driven away everyone who might be my friend.

The heat began to spread, despite how hard I tried to clamp down. I understood what it wanted—what _I_ wanted—but I couldn't. It was something I dreamed of, something I desired more than anything else—but I forbid myself, kept myself in check. I had to. I could blame it on my power—say it was the cause of these feelings—but that'd have been a lie and I knew it. It was me. And if I knew anything, I knew myself.

So I knew that if I gave in, if I started, then I wouldn't stop. It all played back into a single thought and single memory and single wish I'd clung to in the locker and through all of this. A wish that, ironically, the only thing keeping me from was myself.

_I would make them pay twice over for what they'd done to me._

It was the thought that kept me going.

It was the thought that held me back.

It was ironic, in a way. They _wanted_ me to fight them, thought they had all the advantages. If I fought with words or fists, they didn't think it mattered. If I argued and lost, it'd only serve to satisfy them. If I argued and _won_, they'd come down twice as hard next time. If I threw a punch, they thought they'd be able to go running to a teacher and it'd be the story of ten against the story of one.

_I_ thought that if I threw a punch, they'd probably end up in a hospital. If I didn't go too far, which I wasn't sure I wouldn't if I gave myself the chance.

So I stood by. I said nothing and stared blankly past them as the words rained down. It hurt—despite it all, the words still hurt—but I was used to it. Dealing with my scales rubbing the underside of my skin…that was more difficult and got harder every time as the amount of payback I owed them increased. It was especially difficult as I stared past them at Emma, who stood back with a slight smile on her lips, observing and waiting. My former best friend. I owed her more than most.

The opening of a door drew my attention and for a moment I was grateful for the distraction—and then I saw what it was. Mr. Gladly exiting his classroom. The girls around me didn't seem to notice, didn't stop even as he locked his door.

He turned, looking at me for a moment.

And then he walked away.

My scales nearly burst forth then and there. Not five minutes ago, he'd been trying to convince me to go to the principal, try and prove I was being bullied, and here he _sees it_ and walks away? Had he been trying to get plausible deniability, doing the bare minimum to address a problem that he couldn't ignore any more? Had he just given up after failing to help in his utterly ineffectual way? Decided I wasn't worth the effort?

My bones got hotter. I held my breath for a moment before exhaling slowly, trying to keep any fire from coming up with it. It didn't keep the air from heating but none of the girl's around me seemed to notice that. Idiots—I'd held on, kept from hurting them for six months, but I was getting dangerously close to breaking. And if _I_ snapped, well, it wouldn't be a school shooting. This place would look like Sodom and Gomorrah after I was done paying back what I was due—and Mr. Gladly hadn't helped my control by adding to it.

For a moment, I wished we were guys. That this had been physical, that I could fight back. Even without my enhanced strength, I was in good shape—if it had been normal humans against normal humans I'd have lost, sure, but I could have broken a few noses, given some black eyes before their numbers rode me down, and this would be over. I'd have hurt for days, worried my dad, but I'd know they would all have been hurting too. If it got too bad, the school would have to pay attention, maybe suspend us all but certainly look into why about ten people had beaten up one guy. And if we added my powers to the picture, well…

But when it came to this, to name calling and emotional abuse, it was like it wasn't real just because it didn't leave any bruises. I was powerless here, unless I wanted to make this war nuclear—which I could, oh so very easily. But I couldn't, so it was just the popular girls against the freak who didn't talk much and kept missing homework. Their word against mine. And if I used my powers, the PRT would get involved and things would just get even worse for me. Even if I limited myself, they'd make up a story and I'd come to school with the reputation of a psycho and they the victims and the bullying would get worse as others joined in.

Unless I was willing to take it to the extremes I could, there was nothing I could do except take it until they ran out of steam, which they thankfully seemed to be starting to do. But I had to ask myself the same question I did every time this happened—how long could I keep this up? How long could I keep my power in check when it grew harder every day? How long before something made me snap?

Emma finally stepped forward.

"What's the matter, Taylor? You look upset."

The sudden words put me off-guard and I knew she had something in reserve, had been preparing something, waiting patiently to deliver the coup de grace. I braced myself for it, reminded myself I'd taken the worst she had for months, that there was nothing she could do that could really hurt me anymore.

And then she spoke and the shattered remains of my defenses came crashing down around me.

"So upset you're going to cry yourself to sleep for a straight week?"

It took me a moment to grasp that, to truly understand the meaning of those words. Memories came first, of the year before high school, when we'd been friends. When I'd heard the news of my mom's death and had broken and cried and crumbled. When she had cried with me. When I'd hadn't eaten for days because my dad was too much of a wreck to cook and had hide at her home until her mom spoke to him and things began to get better.

I thought of a time months later, when I'd begun to pick up the pieces. When I'd put myself back together and realized I'd survive. When Emma had told me she admired me for my strength, how I'd held it together for a month—and I'd told her, knowing she was my best friend and would never use it against me, that I wasn't strong. That I'd cried myself to sleep every night for an entire week.

And here we were.

I looked at her wordlessly. My mouth hung open as I stared and I couldn't bring myself to close it. She knew what she was doing, knew what it would make me think off, and for all that I knew what she was trying to do it fucking _worked_.

But she didn't really understand what she had done—the answer she'd given me.

My eyes burned with the memory of tears.

_Wow._

Then, they burned with actual tears, dredged up by the memories and the betrayal.

_Apparently, only for ten more seconds_.

And then they just _burned_.

**XxXXxX**


	2. Spark 1-2

**Spark 1.2**

The tight grasp I'd kept on my powers for so long shattered and it came bursting forth. In some ways, it was terrifying as all the fears, the pain, the insecurity, the shame—as all the things they'd done to me—caught flame in the burning depths of my heart, igniting into a conflagration that I knew I wouldn't be able to reign in or put out.

But more than that, it was a relief. This was what I'd wanted to do for so long. This was what I'd denied myself, kept myself from, out of fear of what would happen—this. Deep down, maybe I'd always known that this would happen eventually—that eventually, I wouldn't be able to take it anymore and would snap. I'd held off, tried to endure and not think about it, but I think I'd known I wouldn't be able to get all the way through high school like this. I think I'd understood, since the day I'd triggered, that something like this would eventually happen, just given the nature of my powers and who I was.

And keeping it from happening had _hurt_. Actually hurt. I didn't truly realize that except in hindsight, because it had been a gradual thing, building up slightly each day until I noticed the strain of holding back but not really the pain of doing so, until it was gone. And now that it was…

I felt free.

_I don't think I can stop now, mom. I'm even not sure I want to._

I rolled a step forward, scales bursting from my skin. The girls were in my way, expressions of dawning terror coloring their expressions, but I just shoved them out of the way. One arm was enough to swing the weight of four of the girls and send them sliding ten feet down the hallway. I didn't bother being careful and several of them bounced off the lockers on either side of the hall. I think one might have clipped their head on it and I saw a little bleeding, but I honestly didn't care. I knew all the names, all the faces, all the crimes—but at the moment, I was focused, paying only slight attention to most of them.

Emma, Madison, and Sophia were my main tormentors, with the other just making my life miserable to impress them. Which didn't mean I wasn't angry with them, but I had my priorities. I grabbed another girl, frozen in fear as everything went wrong around her and she realized she'd ended up siding with Chris against Carrie, and absently flicked my wrist—an almost casual gesture that still had the strength to lift her off her feet and throw her five feet away and bounce her off a doorframe. She staggered heavily, coughed roughly, and grabbed her ribs in pain—but, despite that, started running. Three of the four I'd tossed aside before scrambled to their feet and ran as well, leaving behind the fourth, now unconscious.

It seemed only then that the situation caught up with the four that were left standing. One was some girl in my Computer class I didn't bother paying attention to—but I took a hopping step forward to land next to Madison and Sophia. I grabbed Madison's left arm hard enough that she screamed and I felt something break beneath my fingers. Reaching out absently with my other hand, I backhanded Sophia in the stomach hard enough to send her crashing into the lockers. She made a sound that might have been a scream if I hadn't thoroughly knocked the breath out of her before she fell to her knees and started to vomit. I looked down at her for a moment—one of my chief tormentors kneeling and humiliated at my feet—and half-dragged, half-threw Madison as her screams got annoying. She crashed into the lockers on the opposite side of the hall, slamming into them right in front of Emma as she tried to run and cutting off her escape route.

With the mounting strength in my legs, jumping across the hallway was trivial and I landed right in front of my former best friend, stopping my forward momentum by slamming a hand into the locker to her left before I hit her. And I meant _into_—my hand sank into it up to my elbow, stopping only after denting the back of it. I placed my other hand more lightly on the other side of her, caging her in before leaning towards her.

"Emma," I said, not bothering to change my voice this time. It came out as a fierce rumble and either it, her name, or Madison's nearby whimper drew a wince from her.

"T-Taylor." She said. "Y-you're a—"

"A Parahuman," I finished for her, keeping my tone polite. It was kind of embarrassing to admit, but the first night I'd had super powers, I'd practiced my new voice in front of the mirror, pretending I was a superhero. Fierce voices, snarls, classic and clichéd lines from movies—but with a voice like mine, it can be easy to slip into unintelligibility if I wasn't careful. My favorite voice, for that reason, was this one; with calm, careful pronunciations, I could remain fairly understandable until my mouth changed. I even had a smile to go with it, maybe curb some of the more freighting aspects of my powers—can't go terrifying the civilians, after all. After my attempts at being a hero had fallen through, I'd given up on it, but I tried to force myself to use it now, with my emotions running so high, but something about it made Emma pale so it probably hadn't worked. "Yes. I have you to thank for that, in a way. I got my powers in the locker you put me in."

"I-I," She tried, before changing tracks. "It wasn't me who—"

"It was you," I said bluntly, pausing when I felt the heat of my breath before continuing. "It may not have been you who shoved me in and I doubt you personally filled it up. Maybe it wasn't even your _idea_. It doesn't matter—you went along with it, put me in and locked me up with all of that _filth_. You could have stopped it or let me out or told someone or helped me—but you _didn't_. Instead, you laughed. Like you did with my mom's flute. When you humiliated me. When you stole from me. Insulted me. _Betrayed_ me."

My smile faltered for a moment but I simply tried harder, forcing it back into place. My teeth hadn't changed yet, but Emma swallowed.

"You know, I was locked in there for a long time, Emma," I said. "I didn't get my powers immediately, you see. I tried to pound down the door, but all I did was make my knuckles bleed—it's not like now, where I can do this."

I flexed the fingers of my right hand and the metal of the locker door warped and crumbled beneath it, a casual demonstration of strength and Emma's skin became even paler, almost sickly looking.

"I thought I was going to die," I admitted, pretended I hadn't done anything. "I exhausted myself until I collapsed in that _shit_ and still no one came. I lost track of time in the horrible stench and the darkness and wasn't sure if days had passed or mere hours, but I honestly struggled until I couldn't even move anymore and it wasn't enough. And then I triggered. But leading up to all that, do you know what I'd thought about, Emma?"

I kept my tone polite, conversational, keeping my smile fixed in place. I shifted my right arm, moving so that it was my forearm pressed against the locker instead of my hand. In this position, I could take advantage of the fact that I was one of the tallest girls in school and lean over Emma, look down on her. I knew from what little practicing and modelling I could do that my eyes had become glowing, molten orbs by now and I forced Emma to look into them.

"W-w-what?" She asked after seeing I was waiting for a reply.

"You. All of you. The one's who'd done it to me. Somehow, someway, I'd get out and make you pay. I'd make you suffer _twice_ as bad. And ironically, when my wish was granted, when I got the power to do so…I hesitated. I didn't want to become like _you_. But you know…I can be a bitch too, if I want to be. I really, really can. I've learned from the best, you know? I can hurt you."

"You d-don't want to do t-that, Taylor," She said.

Giggles bubbled up from somewhere deep inside me, taking me by surprise. I swallowed them down quickly, but a few managed to escape.

"Actually," I told her. "I kind of do."

"They'd put you in the Birdcage." She said, seeming to gain confidence. "They'd lock you up with the biggest monsters around and throw away the key. It's a hell with no escape."

"Sounds like high school, only more fun," I told her. "Let me worry about that—you focus on the matter at hand. What am I going to do with you, Emma? I'm open to ideas, if you want to help. Come up with an idea that makes up for what you've done to me and I'll try to be forgiving. Can you think of anything? I said I'd pay you back for everything you'd done to me, but I'm honestly not sure how to get back for that much."

Emma swallowed again and I looked at her, thinking.

"I could put you in a locker, too," I said, drumming the fingers of my right hand, my nails leaving tiny little dents, honestly pondering the matter. In all my dreams of revenge, I'd never really thought about this part, oddly—I knew I'd pay them back but hadn't let myself consider how, worried it'd lead to, well, this. "It'd be a start. But it'd take too much time to gather all the stuff and let it ripen. I've dreamed of doing that to you guys, just a bit, but it sounds like a lot of work, especially since people are probably on their way."

I frowned, tilting my head to the side before looking around, musing all the while.

"I could make do." I said, speaking more to myself then her. "Put you in a locker and heat things up a bit."

Flames erupted around my arms, not intense enough to melt the metal yet, but hot enough that Emma flinched and drew away from the lockers—which meant drawing closer to me. She froze as she realized that, seeming to realize she was stuck.

"Remember when we used to bake stuff in your mom's oven?" I asked her, considering it, trying to decide if I could do it, if I _should_. "I'm guessing it'd be a lot like that, except you'd be alive while it happened. It'd probably hurt a lot. I could make you _suffer_, Emma. I have the power to do so, so why shouldn't I? That was enough for _you_, right?"

"S-Sophia," She said, eyes frantic.

"I don't_ care_ about who did what; you were all involved. I'll get to her later." I told her bluntly, but she wasn't even looking at me now.

"Sophia!" She repeated, shouting—and I wasn't sure even she knew what she was saying or why, but she buckled, pressing her back against the heated lockers and kicking me even as the heat made her whimper. The blow caught me in the stomach and did all of nothing as I looked at her, silently.

Then I turned my head as someone stabbed me in the back. Sophia had recovered. I hadn't really been paying attention to her, but it explained what Emma had been saying, a bit. A part of me wondered where she'd gotten the knife, but it didn't really matter.

I turned my body so that my left hand was still buried in the locker, but my right shoulder was pointed in Sophia's direction, letting me see them both. Paying attention to my surroundings again, I listened to see if I had missed anything else. My scales which had slowed their growth when I had so easily crushed my enemies began erupting again now that they were fighting back and after a moment I could feel my senses becoming clearer, sharper. I could hear yelling in the distance, shouting and panicking. Probably people calling the PRT or something.

I wondered what I'd do when they got here. I honestly wasn't sure. Surrender, maybe, after I was done? Or I could run, go…somewhere. I hadn't really considered the idea of doing anything that could bring them down on me before now, so I wasn't sure.

I frowned in thought and squinted as the world became even more blurred. I reached up and removed my glasses, putting things back into focus. My eyes had been fixed when I'd got my powers, but I'd worn them all this time anyway, pretending that things were still the same.

Now, I dropped them to the ground and stepped on them absently before reaching behind me with my free hand and dealing with the secondary annoyance, pulling the knife free. The wound it left behind began closing immediately, scales rising up to keep it from happening again, but I just looked at the weapon I held in my hands. Pretty good quality, I guessed, though I wasn't much of a judge. Also, covered in my blood, which I wiped off on my shirt even as the heat rising from my hand began to quickly dry it.

I looked at Sophia, raising an eyebrow.

"Stabbing the monster?" I asked. "Really? You're like one of those girls in a bad horror movie."

I threw it at her, hard. So hard that it passed right through her, pierced the locker behind her, and slid in up to the hilt.

No, that wasn't right. It had passed through her, but not because of how hard I'd thrown it—for a moment, she'd turned dark, becoming smoke and shadow, and the knife had simply passed through her like she wasn't there.

I frowned, noticing several things, one of which made me really mad—but my thoughts were a jumble in the face of the sudden realization, too mixed up for me to determine precisely what I thought was so important.

"You're a parahuman," I said, rather stupidly. Obviously she was a parahuman if she'd turned into smoke or something. That wasn't what bothered me so much, so I tried following it up with another thing I'd realized at seeing her transform. "Shadow Stalker. You're Shadow Stalker."

Sophia backed up, reached back to grab the heated knife, and removed it from the locker door by going shadowy for a moment. I glanced down and exhaled slowly, trying to figure out why I was getting so angry. My frown deepened before turning into something else—a mockery of a smile that I didn't feel, maybe; my body falling back on the faked expression without me consciously thinking about it.

"You're a Ward," I remembered a moment later; an unimportant detail I'd picked up somewhere in the months of research that had followed gaining my powers, that she'd joined the Wards at some point—and it was then that I understood why I was so upset. "You're a _hero_?"

My polite tone evaporated as I snarled the last word, stepping towards her and away from Emma. I ripped my left arm from the locker as I did, tearing off the door in the process, and I grabbed it with the same hand. The fire that had been building beneath my skin got hotter then, stoked into an inferno as I understood. As I realized that the heroes I'd looked up to—wanted to become—had taken Shadow Stalker in, made her one of them. That they'd abided by her behavior, if not approved of it, and had failed me horribly in the process.

Who else knew? Did the teachers know? The principal? Was _this_ why Sophia could get away with everything she'd done to me? Because she was a hero and I was just a normal girl?

The scales began rising from my skin faster and I saw a spark of weariness appear in Sophia's eyes—worry. I felt strength surge through me along with the heat that wanted to come out—and I let it, erupting from my hands and winding all the way up my arms in burning spirals. My shirt began burning but I didn't care—I'd known, on some level, that it would happen the moment I'd started transforming. I had more important things to worry about.

"_You're_ a fucking _hero_!?" I shouted—roared, really; the sound human but unbelievably loud. My foot slammed into the floor hard enough to send a spider web of cracks through it—and hard enough to propel me at my enemy.

**XxXXxX**


	3. Spark 1-3

**Spark 1.3**

She became a shadow a moment before we connected, gliding like a breeze to the side and then back into one of the lockers. I slammed into the row, denting three lockers badly, and swore before recovering. Smashing my hands into the row I tore it off the wall, revealing her again as she flowed through the tearing steel that was already falling apart under her own weight. She had something in her hand, but I couldn't tell what and I didn't really care—I swung the lockers I still held at her, wondering if a big enough attack would affect her even when she was like smoke.

She leapt out of the way, turning solid only long enough to make the motion and then becoming like smoke again. She landed in front of the closed door to a class room, passing through it like it wasn't there.

So did I, though for a rather different reason. As the shattered remains of the door crumbled to the floor, I growled at Sophia as she dove for the window and then overtook her with another pushing stomp, tearing down the entire wall in a rain of rubble and glass. I flew through the air for a second before falling to ground level, landing nearly twenty feet from the school and turned to glare. Sophia was floating weightlessly, still in the air. My tackle had moved me through her but hadn't _hurt_ her—it seemed strength wouldn't be enough on its own.

I filed that away. It was troublesome, but not really unexpected. I'd wanted to test her intangibility out for myself, get a read on it, and think I was putting together a picture. I'd _felt_ her, somewhat—a small change as I'd passed through her—so she wasn't really _intangible_, so much as she wasn't _solid_. She definitely wasn't a liquid, either. A type of gas, maybe? I wasn't sure how she passed through walls, but she wasn't untouchable.

So the question became, if she wasn't intangible, how did I hurt her? Using a sword to cut air may not work, but there are other options—heat being the one I had immediate access to. Would she still conduct heat? Even if it didn't hurt her, would she expand? I'd read up about the effects of heat when I'd first gotten my powers though I didn't remember the specifics—but it was something like with each degree of Celsius it rose, a gas would increase to occupy a two hundredth or three hundredth more space, or something like that. If I got my flames hot enough, I could make her expand to two or three times her normal size—maybe more.

How would that feel? Would it hurt her? Kill her? Not affect her in the slightest?

Only one way to find out.

The flames swirling around my arms blazed even more, spreading to cover them in sleeves of fire. My fingers curled and I thrust it out in Sophia's direction, blasting a stream of orange flames thirty feet into the air. Before it hit, Sophia turned solid again, letting gravity resume its hold on her and pull her out of the way. A second before she hit the ground, she turned into a shadow again and landed lightly before bounding away.

Though the attack had missed, it'd confirmed two things for me—One, that she couldn't fly, she could only make use of her weightlessness to glide and perform large jumps. Two, that she couldn't, _wouldn't_, risk touching my flames. I made an educated guess that her shadow state came with disadvantages she just couldn't work around, such as her weightlessness being a drawback when she was in the air and wanted to move quickly. She made up for it by switching in and out of her solid form, as needed.

And because I saw it coming, I barreled right through her body a moment after she'd left the ground, flames and all. This time, I was in a better position to see what happened as I passed through her—she dispersed for a moment and then pulled herself together a bit more slowly.

I nearly frowned. If she could pull herself back together like that, what did she have to fear from flames? Whether it was being dispersed by a large object passing through her or by expansion, it shouldn't have made much of a difference, unless…

Turning, I sank my fingers up to the knuckle in the wall of the school, tearing out a chuck the size of my torso and throwing it through Sophia, blowing away most of her chest before she even landed—and when she did, I dove through her again, forcing to reassemble again. I spun around, ready to try at least a few more times to see if my guess had any truth to it—but I didn't need to bother. Sophia collapsed back into solidity, panting like she'd just run five miles. Two long steps were enough to reach her side again and I crouched down beside her.

"You're not looking so great, Sophia," I told her. "Can't get up?"

She just glared at me, the rage in her eyes held in check only by her exhaustion. I smiled at her a little.

Then I grabbed her with one burning hand and forced her to stand and I rose. My senses were growing alongside my strength and flames and I could hear her flesh burning, her muscles starting to sizzle beneath her baking skin. She screamed and turned into a shadow again, slipping through my fingers—but I'd known she'd do that and my other arm came down on her, smashing through what would have been her shoulder and down to the leg on the opposite side of her body, cutting her body in two. When she pulled herself together again, it was with a strangled scream as she collapsed into solidity once again, falling at my feet.

"I can hurt you, Sophia," I informed her. "Maybe I will. Because I can. Because I'm strong and you're weak. Because I took everything you could throw at me for months and came out strong enough to pay you back for it. So, what do you think I should do? I suggested a locker to Emma, some dramatic irony, but I'd be kind of hard to keep you in there, wouldn't it? If you got desperate enough, hurt enough, you'd try to get out and probably succeed. But you aren't invincible; you're _weak_."

I kicked her lightly in the side to emphasize my point and she skid several feet along the ground. I paused for a moment, bending forward slightly to stretch my back before the armor plates of my spine escaped, standing up like the hackles of a dog before lying flat, one over the other. I straightened, clearing my throat as I grew taller my spine in position to support my growth. I could feel the miniscule but constant growth in my limbs now and smiled at the feeling as I approached my former tormentor.

"I gave Emma the chance to suggest a fitting punishment for herself, you know. Seems only fair to give it to you as well," I said. "You know what you've done better than anyone, so you should be able to come up with something fair. If you do, I'll be lenient. I'll even go further—show mercy—if you tell me _why_."

Sophia panted, struggling to catch her breath—but managed to force out words despite it.

"…Can't…think of anything…worse," She gasped out between breaths.

"Hm?" I wondered, not expecting such an admission.

"…Then having to hear…you whine like a bitch," She spat, head lowered to hide her eyes.

I looked at her silently for a minute before giving a mirthless chuckle.

"I never realized it, but you're kind of funny, Sophia," I told her. "Well, since you can't think of anything, I guess I'll have to do it. Um…you're on the track team, right? Do you enjoy running? Maybe I should probably burn your legs off…"

"Oh, shut the fuck up, you stupid bitch!" She snarled, forcing herself to her knees for a moment and turning into a shadow again and shoving her hand at me—into me. I just barely managed to lean back, but her hand still passed through my flesh, into my guts. A second later, she solidified again, the matter of her hand fusing with my skin and entrails. I screamed then, surprised by both the sudden action and the pain it caused me, going right through my armored hide. I stepped back, an instinctual attempt to get away from the pain, and did nothing but cause myself more of it as I pulled her along with me. It was only then that I realized that Sophia was screaming, too, remembered that she was _here_, and I bit down on the cry.

Snarling, I grabbed her hand tight enough that her forearm crumbled in my grasp and _pulled_. I pulled hard enough to tear her arm out of my stomach, even with her fingers curled to grasp my intestines and the sight of it, the sight of the pain she'd caused me even now, made my hatred burn even hotter. Already, my power was working to heal the injury, but with her holding my entrails in her fingers—with the damage she'd probably caused them by phasing…

It wasn't worth it. With my flames coming so eagerly to my fingers now that my rage had mounted, I burnt the flesh of Sophia's arm away down to the bone and then broke it with a twist that sent rivets of agony through me. Her undignified screams at the pain I'd caused her in return were nothing but a consolation prize and an inadequate one at that; despite everything, even _now _she could hurt me.

"You _bitch_," I snarled, not even looking at her. I slammed one hand into her, felt bones breaking under the force, and flung her away like a rag doll, making sure she wouldn't be able to hurt me again. "I'll fucking _kill _you."

I turned my gaze to my intestines and the finger and hand that had all but fused with them. It looked bad, probably unsalvageable and almost certainly too much to bother with. I turned my flames and my claws upon them next, tearing them from my body, burning them until they were charcoal and then ashes as they reverted back to normal away from my body. I could feel my powers reacting, the last of my scales bursting forth and covering me completely, for all that it mattered. She'd gone right through my defenses.

And that was what hurt the most. Even like this, she could hurt me. I hadn't realized she could do that, phase things _into_ people. I'd been careless, hadn't fully thought through the possibilities of phasing, ascribed unconfirmed limits to it. It was humiliating because it was my mistake; I'd gotten cocky, started gloating like I'd already won, sure that like this there was nothing she could do to me, and now I was paying for it in blood.

But I'd survive this and I'd pay her back twice as hard; I'd made a mistake but I'd learn from it, wouldn't repeat it again.

I tried rising, even though my guts were still horribly damaged, but I simply fell to my knees. Wary of a surprise attack while I was down, I roared and called to my flames, bathing myself in them and wearing them as a second armor. The last of my clothes burned away but I didn't care—despite the pain, maybe _because_ of it, I was growing, healing, getting stronger. I'd been wounded despite my armor, but I'd grow beyond that, break every limit. I screamed in pain as my gut churned, new intestines forming and shifting into their proper position. I knelt, but I didn't cry, refused to. I shoved the emotions _out_, into the bonfire around me, feeding it, helping it grow until I blazed like the sun as the seconds wore into minutes—and then I stood, over nine feet tall and clad in gleaming scales at the core of my flames.

I could hear screaming, now that my own wasn't drowning it out. I could even make most of them now—phone calls, panicked conversations, sirens in the distance, and I heard every word they spoke. They were talking about _me_. Reporting me to the police and the PRT, calling me a monster.

That was fair enough, I supposed.

I could also hear a quick beat somewhere nearby and turned my attention to my fallen foe. She hadn't moved since I'd thrown her—probably couldn't—but she was alive. Probably unconscious, too, but I'd messed up once by underestimating her. I wouldn't do it again.

My flames gathered and swirled around my arms as I brought them up and together, inhaling deeply before unleashing it. My pyrokinesis had grown as I'd recovered and the gout that extended from my hands could have extended fifteen feet—overkill, perhaps, but I wanted to be sure this time.

So I was surprised when it bent in midair before it even reached the halfway point, looping around before continuing its fight, splashing over my skin. It didn't hurt me—my flames never did—but it was _loud_, especially to my enhanced hearing, and the force drove me several steps back. But even over the roar of the flames, I could hear something odd—several sets of footsteps in bizarre patterns, covering hundreds of feet with each step.

And with them, voices.

"What the hell are we looking at?" One asked. "A case 53?"

"Possibly." Said a more authoritative voice. "Brute and Blaster for sure, maybe others; Blaster seems limited to using fire. How bad is Shadow Stalker doing, Vista?"

"Bad," Said a young girl, sounding kind of sick. "Her arm is…gone. I think a lot of her bones are broken, too, and she has some burns. I don't think she can move on her own."

"Shit," The second voice said. "Carrying her out of here's probably not an option—that means we'll have to do this the hard way. Gallant, can you call New Wave? Tell them that there's a big problem near Winslow High and we'd appreciate Panacea's help healing the injured—as well as anyone else they can spare."

"On it, Aegis."

"Clockblocker, you handle Shadow Stalker. It's too dangerous to take care of her now—freeze her."

"I'll need some cover."

"You've got it. Kid Win, take to the air and provide cover fire. Vista, distance assist. I'll engage her personally. Let's go."

I growled. I turned to look at them, but I barely needed to bother—I recognized the names.

The Wards had finally arrived.

**XxXXxX**


	4. Spark 1-4

**Spark 1.4**

I'd researched the Wards, even considered joining for a while, and while I wasn't sure about the specifics, I knew the basics. I was still probably going in blind in a lot of ways, but I had a rough picture to start with and was at least aware of how much I didn't know. Aegis was an Alexandria cape—flight, super strength, invincibility. Vista could warp space, something I hadn't given much thought to before now but suddenly realized was going to be an enormous pain in the ass. Gallant could do something with emotions, though I was forgetting what, and may have been a Tinker based on his suit, though I knew for a fact that Kid Win was. And Clockblocker—who had already reached Sophia's side, moving astonishingly fast—could freeze things in time, rendering them unmovable and untouchable for a while.

I only had a moment to see him before Aegis hit me full in the face, closing the distance with surprising speed—thanks to Vista again, I was guessing. I snarled, stumbling back a step, before punching him hard, sending him flying into—through—the walls of the school. I noted in surprise how squishy he felt for someone that was supposed to be invincible, his ribs braking under the force of my knuckles—but right before my eyes he rose up from the rubble like nothing had happened and came flying at me again, and while he moved fairly quickly even normally, about half way he hit this…_patch_ of odd space and was right in my face again, fist taking me under the chin hard enough to lift me off my feet.

I landed awkwardly, stumbling, and he took advantage of it to ram into my chest, knocking me down. Growling slightly, I called my flames, brightening the bonfire around me in the hopes of buying myself a moment to think. Aegis rammed right through, showing no sign of concern at the flames, but he wasn't the one they were meant for.

Aegis's punches hurt a bit, but already I could feel more scales shifting beneath the ones that were in place, reinforcing them further even as the exterior scales grew harder. I was still growing, the sudden appearance of the Wards doing nothing but fueling my power, and I knew that soon I'd be too strong to be hurt by this annoyance. No, I had bigger worries—Clockblocker and Vista currently, and Gallant and New Wave before too long. With Vista here, they had complete control of the battlefield and if Clockblocker touched me, well, I'd probably wake up in chains and with the Protectorate around me. As long as I kept the flames around me hot enough, which thankfully wasn't a problem—I was safe from being directly affected by the latter, but there really wasn't anything I could do about Vista at the moment.

I threw another punch at Aegis when he suddenly stopped moving within my reach, only to fall hilariously short, the feet between us stretching before suddenly snapping into place in time for him to strike me across the face. I reached out to grab him but I couldn't reach quite far enough, even with him this close and he struck me again and again, darting around through paths of twisted geometry arranged in arcs around me. Growing irritated, I turned into the next blow, opening my mouth. His fist connected with my now warped teeth and though it sent tremors throughout the whole of my face, they held and I sank them into his flesh, the flames around me blazing brightly and growing to cover him as well. Aegis let out a surprised breath as my teeth dug in and he began to burn, but recovered quickly, bringing up his other hand to start punching me in the face to try and make me let go, but I just planted my feet and started shaking him like a dog with a toy.

To his credit, he didn't stop hitting me even as I swung his around again and again, though the sharp starts and stops were probably playing havoc on his body if he was, as I suspected, no more durable then a normal person. Did he have regeneration like me? I didn't think so, since the steadily worsening burns on his skin showed no sign of healing—but there was an easy way to confirm it. However his power worked, he wasn't slowing, much less going down.

I brought more of my flames to my mouth—and to the arm held tightly between my teeth. I felt his flesh cook on my tongue as the flames intensified in the confines of my mouth and just bit down harder, working my jaw so that I didn't have to open it and risk him escaping. I swung him again, back and forth, but with a different purpose now, my superhuman jaws quickly sawing through muscle and reaching bone. Aegis seemed to understand what I was doing and began kicking my frantically even as my flames continued to char his skin black—but his blows had already become ineffective.

"Aegis!" I heard someone cry—Gallant, I thought. Aegis, for his part, seemed to realize punching me wasn't working anymore and curled his fingers instead, shoving them into one of my eyes, forcing a muffled cry from my throat as he grasped the eye and tore it from its socket. I bit down harder—in pain and in anger—and bone splintered beneath them as I tore right through, ripping his arm entirely off. Aegis flung himself away from me, helping the process, and the other side of his arm fell on its own, leaving a streak of already sizzling blood down the length of my chin.

I exhaled a stream of fire after the fleeing Aegis, removing the charred strips of flesh and blacked splinters of bone from my mouth in the process. Unfortunately, the stream twisted directions again, washing over me as it had before. I didn't even stumble this time, spitting to help remove the bad taste from my mouth. Aegis flew away from me, assisted by Vista.

"—Careful! Something _wrong_—my punches…stopped working." I heard Aegis gasp out in a parody of a shout, only listening with half an ear.

I'd lost an eye, but it'd grow back soon at the rate I was growing and I'd paid back the one who'd done it. It was worth it, too, for what I'd learned about both Aegis and Vista. Aegis didn't heal, at least not that I could see, nor was he any more durable then a normal human—but I'd crushed his bones, burnt his skin until it was black, and tore off his arm and still he'd fought. His power, whatever it was, let him fight through pain and injury like they weren't even there. If I wanted to stop him, I'd probably need to rip all of his limbs off or something.

But I wasn't worried about Aegis—I'd grown past what he could do, though apparently my eyes hadn't. I'd have to keep that in mind, but I still wasn't particularly concerned about it, my enhanced senses already beginning to compensate. My flames were growing hotter as I grew bigger and soon he wouldn't be able to approach me at all.

The issue was still, of course, Vista.

I leapt after Aegis, more to test something then out of any actual hope of reaching him—and, sure enough, I fell short by nearly twenty feet. Considering she hadn't saved Aegis from my grasp—and hadn't just done something horrible to my body to stop me—I was fairly certain Vista couldn't directly affect people for some reason. That was good in that it kept her from making my brain too big to be contained by my skull or something. On the other hand, it still meant she could stop me from ever getting close to her, which was a pain in the _ass_—she'd lock me down until the other teams showed up.

I had to think of a way around it. I continued to run forward as I did so, hoping it'd at least keep Vista preoccupied while I was distracted, and as I did, I paid more attention to what they were saying, hoping to get something useful.

"Aegis, _shit_, are you—" Gallant started.

"M'okay," Aegis said, voice off, strained. I had probably collapsed a lung, for all it had done. "Hurts, but…fine. But she's strong. I wasn't hurtin' her. Even ripping out her eye didn't…"

"You're burnt really badly, Aegis," Vista said, an edge of panic growing in her voice. I tried to jump at her, take advantage of her being preoccupied, but she just lifted a hand in my direction and I barely covered a quarter of the distance I should have and then she did something and took a step back that carried her and her teammates nearly a block away. "And you're the only one who can get near her and she tore your arm of with her _teeth_."

"Vista's right," Gallant said. "We can't take her down alone—we have to delay her until New Wave and the Protectorate show up."

"I can't get near her," Clockblocker said. "Not without going up in flames, at least."

"I know," Gallant reassured him. "I had a different idea. Vista, remember that trick you showed me? Do you think you could do it on a larger scale?"

"The Birdcage?" I heard her ask. She sounded nervous but also…happy at being asked, maybe. "I…yes, I think so. If it's just one person, I should be able to do it for a while. She might climb out, though."

"You get her down there and I'll pin her in place. It should be enough to keep her busy at least."

I had only to a moment to worry—to realize why they would name something after the greatest prison on Earth—and then then ground around me rose up into tall walls. I tried to leap out of it, jump to safety, but my trajectory changed in midair and I fell back into my cage just in time for it to rise up higher, stacking on top of the existing walls. Grinding my teeth in irritation, I sank my claws into the wall, preparing to climb—

Something hit me—no harder than a normal punch, a _tap_ to me, and yet it drove the breath from my lungs. I leaned against the wall for support, blinking my remaining eye rapidly. Whatever it was, it hit me again. Another time. One after another, the blasts connected.

I didn't care. I was trying not to cry, trying not to give up—and tried to remember why I was even bothering. I wanted to surrender, lie down, and sob myself to sleep. I felt miserable, like I had in some of the darkest times of my life. Worse, I couldn't keep from dwelling on them now. My mom had died because of me. Emma had betrayed me because she knew that as well as I did—the entire bullying campaign was just her trying to punish me for what I'd done, but it wasn't enough. Nothing she did could make up for that—not taking my mom's flute, not humiliating me, not insulting me, nothing. I deserved all that and more.

I should have just died in that locker.

_The locker. _

Through the haze of despair, something about that memory stuck with me. I clung to it like a lifeline as more blows hit me, trying to push me over the edge, trying to remember. My remaining eye burned with tears and I let out a choked, guttural sob—and I remembered. The bullying had been like this, hammering me with petty cruelties and hurtful words as they tried to make me give up and push me into despair, show me I was weak.

I'd sworn to myself that I wouldn't let them. I wouldn't show them how much they'd hurt me, wouldn't let them see my shame or my tears. That she had broken through my defenses, hurt me despite how hard I tried, that she still had what it took to reduce me to tears—it hurt as much as the betrayal, as the wielding of my mom's memory against me like a weapon.

I wasn't weak. I _wasn't_.

I sobbed again, the sound distorted by the changes my power had wrought on my mouth. I tried to hold it in, tried to hold up, and failed. I felt humiliated, disgusting. I was ashamed that they could see the pain they'd caused me. Even in the locker, when I'd struggled until I was exhausted and fallen into the rotten, stinking refuse they'd filled my locker with, I hadn't felt like this. I'd managed to hold myself together better than this, clinging to one thought.

I'd make them pay. Whatever they threw at me, I'd take it, I'd survive, and I would _make them pay_.

It had given me the strength to escape. Strength had flowed through me and the metal that had kept me trapped and bent outward against my hands. It had saved me then; I hoped it'd save me down.

I wiped away my tears and mustered up the strength to force myself to dodge the next blow—a flash of light. Gallant, I thought. His emotion thing. He was making me feel despair. Manipulating me like a puppet, humiliating me, hurting me.

_Do you know what you're doing to me? Reducing me to this again? Making me feel helpless? I won't forgive you. I won't forget this—I'll make you pay._

_I'll fucking kill you for this._

The thought didn't make the feelings he'd inflicted upon me disappear, but it filled me with resolve and the rage in my heart took the edge off my self-loathing, gave me the will to turn it outwards, inflict it on others instead of wallowing in it.

"—Um, guys? Is it just me or is she getting bigger?" Someone asked.

I was growing again. I wasn't sure if it was my inability to defend myself—the need counter my enemies or stop them from hurting me in ways I couldn't protect myself from—that was accelerating my powers or something else, but I was growing faster. More layers of scales started growing in, spear-like growths emerging from my back, my skeleton shifting and rearranging beneath my skin as I grew.

Then I threw back my head and roared my rage to the heavens, my flames rising around me like a massive spear aimed at the heart of the sky.

**XxXXxX**


End file.
